Monday, September 17, 2012

Non-traditional families on the rise in South Korea

What I find really amusing though with such articles, is that it's usually demoralized and bad Westerners who are excited if news about Korea show this country is slowly shedding their Confucian skin. There are tons of articles about how women are ineaqually treated, how multiculturalism is crooked, how social/family life is messed up - but in English. I wish half of those articles could be translated into Korean and read by the people there. Maybe then some would finally get that Joseon has already ended some time ago.

#1. 39-year-old office worker Han Ju-yeol
(not his real name) and 35-year-old insurance saleswoman Lee Su-yeong
(not her real name) are an “unofficial married couple.” They have lived
together for the past four years but have no marriage certificate. The
two each have experienced a failed marriage, Mr. Han’s marriage ended
over personal differences, and Ms. Lee’s ended over her husband’s
unfaithfulness. They do not have a marriage certificate due to their
intensely negative experiences, but live as if they were married. The
two “had two many wounds from getting divorced… if they healed we could
get legally married, but we like the way things are,” they say. The two
have a son who has Mr. Han’s family name.

#2. 27-year old Kim Seong-jin (not his
real name) and 23-year old Park Jae-hui (not her real name), are a
campus couple who had a baby together in March of this year. They lived
together for two years since moving to Seoul when they suddenly got
pregnant. Ms. Park said that “when the pregnancy test came up positive
we thought of getting an abortion… I couldn’t bear the idea.” Their
healthy daughter is currently being looked after by Mr. Kim’s parents.
Mindful of social prejudices, they said they will get a marriage
certificate after obtaining employment.

An increasing number of male-female
couples are living without marriage certificates. According to the
National Statistical Office last month, the number of children born out
of wedlock rose 3.3% last year, or 320 children, to 9,959. That is the
highest number since figures began being kept in 1981. Since 2001 there
has been an increasing trend, which if it continues will see over 10,000
out-of-wedlock births this year. In 1997 such births comprised 0.6%
(4,196) of the total birth rate, which rose 2.1% (9,959) in 2011. Kim
Yeong-cheol, a research leader at the Korea Development Institute, said
that “it appears from the statistics that if this trend towards
out-of-wedlock births is not interrupted, there will be a large increase
in them among cohabitating couples, not just the unmarried, and among
de facto marriages… the traditional, conservative institution of
marriage is weakening.”

According to the NSO, in 2010 there were
17,359,333 household nationwide, of which 12.1%, or 2,096,651, fell into
the “other” category, which excludes all married couples with children
and also grandparents raising grandchildren. There were 4,142,165
one-person households, and 479,120 “secret friend” households. Unmarried
couples with or without children, cohabiting couples, and those in de
facto marriages are classified as either “other”, “single-person”, or
“secret friend”. Perspectives on these relationships are changing with
little consideration of their legal effects. In 2010 the NSO found that
53.3% of teenagers aged 15 to 24 agreed with the statement “men and
women can live together even if they are not married.” In April the
internet polling company Dooit Survey published a study in which 2,513
adults were asked “is it good to cohabitate before getting married?” 60%
said yes. Lee Mi-Jeong, a research leader at the Korea Women’s
Development Institute, said that “with the marriage age increasing and
sexual freedom expanding, cohabitation has become natural… with an
increasing number of people seeing marriage as a choice and being
accepting of individual sexual customs, the number of out-of-wedlock
births will continue to increase.”

The NSO has also studied unmarried
mothers raising children born out of wedlock. In August the KWDI
published a study (미혼모 자녀양육 및 자립지원을 위한 정책과제) according to which the
number of single mothers who raise their children went from 7.2% in 1998
to 66.4% in 2009.

With the increasing economic ability of
women and an increasing respect for life, the traditional route of
oversea adoption is also crumbling, the KWDI found. Byeon Hwa-sun, head
of the Family Life Research Institute, said that “in the past marriage
and pregnancy were absolutely equated… now, more and more women believe
they can raise a child by themselves, without a man.”

Experts say that it is important that
these “new families” be able to create a heathy and happy social
environment. Although are various systems for them, such as the
Single-Parent Family Support Act (한부모가족지원법), the Domestic Relations Act
(가족관계법), the Medical Insurance Act (의료보험법), and the Act on Special Cases
Concerning Adoption (입양특례법), there are still benefits denied to couples
who are not legally married. Kang Hak-jung, head of the research
institute Home 21, said that “we must create a society in which children
can be raised healthily… it is a long-term social problem that social
benefits are denied to those in de facto marriages, to cohabiting
couples, and to homosexual couples.”